Going Off Half-Cocked

In the best of circumstances, measured, critical thinking is hard work. And as the antics of the gun lobby group the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights amply demonstrate, thinking while foaming at the mouth is well-nigh impossible.

A Toronto trauma surgeon arguing for stricter gun control is being targeted by a national firearm lobby that has flooded Ontario’s physicians’ regulator with dozens of complaints about her.

Dr. Najma Ahmed, who was on call at St. Michael’s Hospital following the Danforth mass shooting, is co-chair of an advocacy group called Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns. The group of doctors came together in February to argue that guns are a public health issue, and to push for the passage of Bill C-71, a bill to reform Canada’s gun laws.

That the doctor has the right to express her opinion on a dire public-health threat is just too much for the gun enthusiasts:

The lobby group the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights last month posted a “call to action” urging members to flood the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario with complaints against Ahmed, even if they have never been her patient. The post provides a step-by-step guide on how to do this, complete with a link to the complaint form.

“I hate to say it, but stay in your lane, Doctor,” the post reads.

This extreme attempt at muting Dr. Amed's voice has thus far resulted in 70 complaints against her, complaints that must be investigated, but it is likely they will ultimately be tossed in the trash, where they clearly belong:

In a statement, Dr. Nancy Whitmore, registrar and CEO at The College, said its mandate is to focus on complaints around clinical care or professional behaviour.

“The CPSO’s role is not to resolve political disagreements when clinical care/outcomes or professional conduct is not in question. We recognize that physicians can play an important role by advocating for system-level change in a socially accountable manner,” she said.

Like all complaints, she said, the ones stemming from the gun group’s campaign are being reviewed by a committee that will determine whether they are frivolous and vexatious.

As a surgeon, Ahmed has witnessed first-hand the terrible damage bullets inflict:

Guns are “highly violent instruments that are intended to kill and maim animals and people,” she told the Star, adding she has seen the damage bullets can cause to the human body. “They act like small metal missiles, and they tear apart the organs and tissues and blood vessels and they do enormous harm.”

In the cartoon world, Yosemite Sam was depicted as a very aggressive gunslinging cowboy with a hair-trigger temper which usually resulted in a fair bit of gunplay. But in cartoons, the effects of violence and mayhem are always shortlived.

Would it were so in the real world.

The Hysteria Surrounding Alleged SNC-Lavalin Job Losses

I was watching The National ((aka The Whore of Babylon among those who reflexively defend all things Liberal) last evening, and was surprised to learn that there seems to be no basis for the claim that 9,000 jobs could be lost should SNC-Lavalin register a criminal conviction that would bar it from bidding on federal contracts for 10 years. As you will see in the following report, the company is currently involved in a number of such projects worth billions that will take years to complete, and there is nothing in a criminal conviction that would prevent them from bidding on provincial contacts, many of which they are currently involved in.

Which leaves one to draw a tentative conclusion: that the alleged interventions to get Wilson-Raybould to grant SNC-Lavalin a DPA was prompted, not by economic, but rather political, concerns. Being a Quebec-based international company, like that perennial basket case Bombardier, the feds felt they had to run interference to maintain their support in La Belle Province.

Go to the 28-minute mark of the following to see the full story:

Your Wednesday (Rueful) Smile

If you have been following Ontario politics lately, you will probably appreciate the latest from Theo Moudakis:



Meanwhile, Brad Blair, the OPP whistle blower, calls his firing a reprisal by Doug Ford:

“It is patently clear to me that this is reprisal and an attempt to muzzle me,” Brad Blair, who was passed over for the top job, said in a new court documents filed following his termination on Monday by deputy community safety minister Mario Di Tommaso, (aka Ford puppet), whom he accused of a conflict of interest.

And the Star editorial board has this to say:

It was glaringly obvious all along that Ron Taverner, Premier Doug Ford’s old chum from Etobicoke, must never be appointed commissioner of the OPP.

Installing a close crony of the premier at the top of the province’s most important police force, the very force that’s expected to investigate political wrong-doing at Queen’s Park, is a complete non-starter.

Regardless of Taverner’s qualifications or the purity of his intentions, making him boss of the OPP would politicize the force in the worst way. Just the suspicion that he could be acting as a political tool of the premier should be enough to bury his chances.

But trust the Ford team to find a way to make this bad situation even worse. It did just that on Monday with the abrupt firing of the senior OPP commander who had the temerity to publicly challenge the premier’s decision to appoint Taverner.

Taking Ontarians for the fools they sometimes are, the Ford government denies any involvement in Blair's firing.

It is an avowal that ever-eager but insensate members of Ford Nation will readily swallow. For citizens who are not given to the foaming-at-the-mouth reactions characteristic of that cult, the government's declaration will be dismissed for the patent nonsense it is.

An Attack On The National Soul

It grieves me to resign from a portfolio where I was at work to deliver an important mandate. I must abide by my core values, my ethical responsibilities, constitutional obligations. There can be a cost to acting on one’s principles, but there is a bigger cost to abandoning them.

- Excerpt from the resignation letter of Trudeau cabinet member Jane Philpott

Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. Canadians like to believe that ours is a nation that embraces fairness, opportunity and, perhaps most importantly, justice.

Unfortunately, given the tact that the Trudeau government is taking to defend itself against the ructions caused by the SNC Lavalin scandal and subsequent departure of two key cabinet members, one can only conclude that Canada's ethos is under attack.

Consider the evolution of Mr. Trudeau's 'explanation' which began after The Globe and Mail released a story alleging that Judy Wilson-Raybould was removed from her position as Justice Minister and Attorney General for refusing to grant a Deferred Prosecution Agreement to SNC-Lavalin. Initially, Trudeau averred that the decision not to prosecute was hers alone, and that she still sat in his cabinet as Verterans Affairs Minister attested to her ongoing contentment. It was at this point she resigned.

Over the last few weeks, the Prime Minister has attempted to change the focus, saying that his government would always stand up for jobs AND the rule of law. Now, the message seems to revolve almost exclusively around jobs and growing the economy. Consider the words of Steven MacKinnon, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Public Services and Procurement yesterday on Power and Politics.

.@stevenmackinnon says "our belief is that this company is one that is, like its competitors around the world, entitled to a deferred prosecution arrangement like they would be able to have access to in the U.K., in France, throughout Europe, in the United States…" #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/dSIur2SY9N

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) March 4, 2019

"The government's adopted approach on this is one that has favoured jobs, it's one that has favoured pensioners, supply chains and a major Canadian company - all innocent victims of some corrupt management maybe a decade ago."

"We do have a disagreement here. We absolutely have a disagreement here and I think the current attorney general has said that, look you have to keep assessing the facts as these cases move along," he said. "But the fact is that we have 10,000 Canadians and their families and pensioners and suppliers and others who are not entitled to the same kind relief they would get if they were to work for an SNC-Lavalin competitor in the United States or in the United Kingdom ...

"The disagreement goes to how you see how Canada ought to approach major economic questions like the SNC-Lavalin issue. Do we do it like our OECD partners, do with these deferred prosecution arrangements, that have been widely discussed? Or do we do it with a ... perhaps more rigid approach?

That more rigid approach, of course, is not to engage in political interference, pressure, and honour the rule of law.

If you go to the whole interview, (start at the 1:28 mark) you will see that MacKinnon sharply implies that neither Wilson Raybould nor Philpott are concerned about "people" and "real jobs."

In his campaign to win office, Mr. Trudeau stoked the hopes of all Canadian that things could be better, and that politics would be done in a new way. Once stoked, such hopes demand action. Now that the Prime Minister has clearly been hoist upon the petard of his own lofty rhetoric, he can expect massive anger and massive resistance to this unprecedented attack on the national soul and the not-too-subtle message being sent that principle, integrity and honour must give way to economic imperatives.

Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth the Ford

In almost biblical fashion, Premier Doug Ford has smote his enemy, aided and abetted by the OPP union.

Brad Blair, the OPP whistleblower who complained loudly and very publicly about the sweetheart deal engineered by Doug Ford to install his longtime pal, Ron Taverner, as the head of the police service, has paid a high price for his outrage: he has been fired.

“I want to advise you that Brad Blair is no longer a deputy commissioner with the Ontario Provincial Police effective immediately,” Interim Commissioner Gary Couture said in a memorandum to members of the force.

The dramatic move follows a complaint last week from Ontario Provincial Police Association president Rob Jamieson about the release of an email — contained in a Blair court filing on his bid to scupper the appointment of Ford friend Ron Taverner as OPP commissioner — on the premier’s concerns about unfamiliar faces on his security detail.

Jamieson wrote to Deputy Community Safety Minister Mario Di Tommaso, who was Taverner’s supervisor at Toronto police, last Thursday stating the release of the email likely resulted in bodyguard Sgt. Terry Murphy being “stood down” from Ford’s detail, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Star.

Anyone with a critical intelligence will ask, quite legitimately, whether this can be the reason for Blair's dismissal. For my money, Doug Ford appears to be a very vengeful man, intent from the beginning on payback against a very brave man for his very public exposure of the Premier's cronyism.

I don't think the story ends here, not by a long shot.

You Probably Don't Want To Hear This

.... but new research suggests that yet another climate-change feedback loop could be in the offing as we plunge headlong toward disaster:

The stratocumulus clouds, the layer of cloud shielding us from the direct rays of the sun could vanish one day. That’s according to a new research by a team of scientists. As Eric Sorensen reports, if this happens, it could lead to rapid global warming.

Watching the story, one is reminded of how, for millennia, the earth provided the kind of balance that allowed life to flourish. Clearly, all the signs suggest that nurturing environment is rapidly changing, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Corporate Corruption

With corrupt corporate practices so much in the news these days, thanks to the Trudeau government's attempts at subverting justice for SNC Lavalin, I couldn't help but be struck by the naked greed so evident in the practices of a pharmaceutical called Insys Therapeutics. Several of the company's executives

... are currently on trial in Boston on charges of racketeering, fraud, and conspiracy, in connection to an alleged nationwide scheme to pay doctors bribes and kickbacks in exchange for prescribing the company’s fentanyl-based pain medication Subsys to patients who would not otherwise require the drug. The executives are also accused of conspiring to mislead and defraud insurance providers that were reasonably reluctant to cover costs for a medication designed for cancer patients when prescribed to patients without cancer.

To appreciate the depth of the company's greed and depravity, go to the 9:16 mark of the following news report, which includes a video extolling the virtues of something called titration, the practice of increasing the dose of a drug:



The 'rap' video excerpted in the above report (I will provide links to the full video at the end of this post) was created for and shown at Insys' 2015 national sales meeting. The message was clear: the more you 'push' the drug, the higher your sales commission will be.

According to former Senator Claire McCaskill, who helped investigate Insys last year,

"What they are saying to their sales representatives is, 'It's not enough that you get a doctor to prescribe it," said McCaskill, now an NBC News analyst. She said the company was telling its employees, "'We're going to pay you five times as much if you can get him to prescribe the strongest dose possible.'"

Interestingly, the company's response to these charges echoes the one heard from SNC Lavalin about the 'rogue employees' who acted without company authority in bribery of Libyan officials to the tune of $48 Million - (their petty cash reserves must be a marvel, eh?):

"The company in no way defends the misconduct of former employees and is fully cooperating with the government."

Nothing to see here, eh?

NEW: Here's the internal Insys video to the tune of A$AP Rocky's "F--kin' Problems" in which employees dance around former sales VP Alec Burlakoff, who is dressed as a life-size bottle of fentanyl spray. It was shown to a jury in Boston federal court today. pic.twitter.com/0SPIEDRpnX

— Aaron Leibowitz (@aaron_leib) February 13, 2019

Here's Part 2. They're singing about "titration," a reference to the process of doctors increasing the dosage for patients as they build tolerance. pic.twitter.com/J60hYQw0PA

— Aaron Leibowitz (@aaron_leib) February 13, 2019